5 Signs You Have A True Friend

January 29, 2016 by Power of Positivity

In today’s world of instant online connections and accumulating thousands of friends on social media platforms, discerning between virtual friends and “real” friends can become quite a challenge. Most of the time, the people we meet online simply don’t get us like the friends we have in our real lives. Indeed, they just haven’t been there through the tough times and don’t know our background. Now, that isn’t to say that you can’t become close with people you meet online or in other non-traditional ways. But usually, we have one or two close friends that we know have our backs no matter what.

The value of cultivating friendships

It’s fun to have someone to hang out with, experiencing the fun things in life. But it might prove even more essential to have a special person to rely on in the worst of times.

According to the Mayo Clinic, having friends also provides these six vital benefits:

You gain a deeper feeling of belonging to a support network, bringing purpose into your life.
You’ll lessen the impact of stress on your life.
You will also increase your joy, happiness, or contentment in life.
When you encounter hard times in life, you will have a support system in place. Think breakups, a job layoff, or the loss of a family member.
Build up your self-worth and confidence.
Help in making healthier choices, like having a buddy to work out with or drive you home after you drink too much.

Do you know who your true friends are? These five signs will reveal someone’s true intentions:

Be aware of these signals of genuine affection in your friendships.

1. They stay with you through the good times and the bad.

A true friend would never leave you just because you’re going through a rough patch – they would stick by your side and help you through the darkness. A clear sign of a true friend is that he or she will laugh with you during the great times and cry with you during the bad ones. In today’s world of flaky, fake friendships, cherish those who aren’t just fair-weather friends. These are the people you will want to keep in your life, as they are definitely genuine friends who want the best for you and care about your well-being.

2. They accept you exactly as you are.

In our list of signs of a true friend, we couldn’t skip over the fact that a real friend will allow you to be whoever you want to be, without judgment. True friends don’t ask you to change the parts of yourself that even you can’t accept – they embrace you anyway, flaws and all. They put your insecurities to rest and actually find beauty in your imperfections. A true friend will love and adore you for whatever you identify with and will admire you for both your strengths and weaknesses.

True friends don’t place conditions on your friendships – they let you come as you are and don’t put any pressure on you or the relationship.

3. They will never hesitate to help you through your struggles.

A true friend will not just let you go through tough times alone – they will drop whatever they’re doing to assist you in hard times. True friends don’t just leave those they love out in the cold; they pick them up off the ground, dust them off, and carry them back to safety once again. A true friend understands that you can’t possibly deal with all of life’s trials and tribulations by yourself, so they have your back no matter what.

4. They make time for you.

Real friends never blow you off or tell you they’re too busy to see you. While they might have to rearrange their schedule a bit, a true friend will never use a lack of time or energy as an excuse to avoid hanging out. A clear sign of a true friend is that they always seem to follow through with their promises and see you no matter how busy their life gets.

They don’t allow life to take over and just toss you aside when things get hectic for them. Instead, they include you in their life and set aside specific times each week to catch up with you.

5. You can feel totally comfortable around each other.

Another sign of a true friendship is that both of you can feel at ease around one another. You don’t have to fake a laugh or force conversation; things just seem to flow effortlessly between you two, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. A true friend doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable or scared to open up. In fact, real friends open their arms and hearts to you and put down their walls to let you in.

You can tell each other anything and not have to censor yourselves. After all, what would friendship be if you constantly had to monitor the things you say? A real friend would never want you to hold back your thoughts and feelings and encourage you to share whatever is on your mind. You can act silly and let your guard down and not have to think twice about doing so. If you want to read more about signs of an authentic friendship, you can do so here.

Final Thoughts on Knowing Who Your True Friends Are

Nobody can go through life completely on their own. We each need a support system of trustworthy advisors. Once you know how to identify an authentic friendship, the rest is up to you. Cultivate it, respect it, and work on it. Your friend is an asset and a blessing. So in return for their kindness to you, treat that special person well.

5 Ways To Stop Taking Things Personally

January 28, 2016 by Power of Positivity

Have you ever found yourself ruminating and overanalyzing what someone said to you hours after a conversation? This serves as a clear sign that you probably take things a little too personally, and care too much about what others say and think. Of course, everyone falls victim to this way of thinking from time to time. Getting validation and acceptance from others prompts us to rely on other people to make us feel good about ourselves, and when they don’t agree with us or say something hurtful, we might become hypersensitive.

Here are five ways to stop taking things personally:

1. Take time to react.

We often don’t even give the other person a chance to explain before we jump in and speak our minds. Make sure you slow down, take some deep breaths, and listen to the other person before jumping to conclusions. You might end up totally misconstruing their meaning, or mishearing them altogether. Oftentimes, when we react immediately after someone finishes speaking, we haven’t even allowed ourselves the time to process the words coming out of the other person’s mouth.

Use your active listening skills, and try not to give a response until you have thoroughly heard the other person out.

2. Ask questions to clarify meaning.

Many things get lost in translation, either because we don’t understand the language and context of what another person says or we don’t listen as well as we should. It happens. But make sure to follow up with questions to avoid taking things personally when you could have clarified the meaning better. Misunderstandings happen all the time. But we could avoid it by affirming the context of what someone says and asking important questions.

3. Distance yourself from toxic people.

Toxic people can drain you of all your energy and keep your emotions running on high. We can easily take things personally when people constantly push our buttons and try to bring us down. Toxic people enjoy making a scene, causing distress, and stealing energy from others. They don’t want to work on themselves or take responsibility for their own feelings because it seems too difficult or painful for them. So, they rely on sucking the life out of others to survive. You might recognize these people as energy vampires, so if you ever encounter them, please refer to our article here about how to protect yourself from energy vampires.

4. Stop relying on others to fuel your self-esteem.

Oftentimes, we take things personally when we care too much about what others think. Don’t look to others to boost your self-esteem; instead, give that validation to yourself, so you don’t have to rely on other people to make you feel worthy of love and care. It’s natural to want to feel accepted and loved, but don’t give your power away to other people. When you don’t feel confident in yourself, you will always seek that feeling from other people, but it will never totally satisfy you.

Make sure you go within to access the deepest form of love imaginable, because you already have everything you need inside you. Love and attention from others should serve as a bonus to what you already have cultivated within. If you’d like some tips on how to increase your self-confidence, read our article about that here.

5. Make sure you make plenty of time for self-care.

Finally, if you don’t make enough time to care about yourself, you will likely have gaping holes in your energy field. In other words, you won’t feel complete, so everything someone else says or does will bother you. However, if you give yourself the self-care and love you deserve, you will feel so high on life that other people’s actions and words won’t get to you as much.

Final Thoughts on Learning to Stop Taking Things Personally

People do annoying, painful, unimaginable things daily, but that doesn’t mean you have to let that get under your skin. When we don’t go within to heal ourselves, we tend to take things personally because we seek others to patch up our wounds and make us forget about our pain. However, people will likely let you down and won’t always be there to lift you up, so put that responsibility on yourself.

The more you focus on things that make you feel good, the less you will take things personally, and the more you will enjoy life.

5 Traits of A Beautiful Woman (Besides Her Looks)

January 28, 2016 by Power of Positivity

Talking about what makes a woman beautiful other than her appearance could mean different things to the woman herself. Besides that, others who see her as beautiful may interpret it uniquely. She is relaxed and open to many new possibilities if she feels beautiful.

A woman can choose to be so for others or just for herself. She may not desire a partner, but she can use her power for her own life.

Usually we think of beauty as a visual trait often translated into attractiveness. Often, people first see her eyes, skin, hair, makeup, and figure.

5 Things That Make A Woman Beautiful (Besides Her Looks)

If you had to think of what else was beautiful about a woman besides her looks, it would probably be one of these five things.

1. A woman and her brain

A woman who is smart beautifully uses her words. Whether she is crafting elegant messages or writing you a love letter, you find her brain to be beautiful. When she combines the power of her brain with her voice, you will be enchanted by her.

A smart cookie who can use her intellect can have financial prowess, creative success, and take the lead. She is competent linguistically, mathematically, and socially. In the bedroom and the workforce, she is smart, playful, and innovative and, because of this, absolutely beautiful.

2. A woman and her nurturing nature

Women tend to be thought of as being more emotional than men. The abundance of a woman’s passion, love, caring, generosity, and joy are beautiful emotions that you want more of in your life. Women are the ones who do the emotional work in a relationship by keeping everyone’s needs taken care of.

Having your emotional needs met by a woman is a beautiful thing, mainly because she is providing you with affection and relieving stress and worries that you may have. You can lay your mental and emotional burdens down when a woman uses her powers of empathy on you.

She is connected to her own spirituality and enjoys the strength she draws from her beliefs, values, and morals. She connects to other people on a personal level that is more about helping each other than benefiting from each other, and that type of caring is one thing that makes her beautiful.

According to one study, there may be an evolutionary reason for women to be selective of their partners in terms of ensuring the investment of their partners in child-rearing. Female emotions are one thing that makes her beautiful to you because she can use them to demonstrate her devotion, commitment, and loyalty to you.

3. A woman and her confidence

Self-confidence is one thing that makes both men and women beautiful. When a woman acts sure of herself, she shows that she is comfortable in her own skin. Indeed, she appears totally confident in her abilities. Projecting that relaxed ease that comes through physically as a confident walk is something that both men and women find attractive.

A confident woman knows herself. She is independent because she can rely on herself to handle situations without stress. She is capable but knows her limits and can be honest about her strengths and weaknesses.

4. A woman’s pheromones

That smell you can’t identify but makes you instantly interested in a woman is probably her pheromones. We all have chemical signals sent out by the secretions from our armpits. These chemical signals are sensed by others who come to them like moths to a flame.

In a study of a synthetic female pheromone, women who applied the pheromones to their skin reported an increase in the frequency of sexual intercourse, sleeping next to a partner, formal dates, touching and kissing compared with women who were not using the pheromones.

When someone is attracted to a female and they can’t figure out why, pheromones are usually the signal that was sent and received. A woman’s pheromones can change throughout her cycle and may be altered by birth control medications. Men may be able to tell if a female is ovulating by her pheromones and may find her particularly attractive during this time.

5. A woman and her skills

A lady with a resume of her accomplishments is beautiful. She can translate her brain into action. This lady can get things done. She raises her kids, manages her money, and cooks meals with love in her tender moments. Then she challenges you to a marathon or works to protect the environment

An accomplished woman may also have talents in lovemaking, which is one of many things you hope to learn from her if you are lucky enough to be with her.

If you had to think of what else was beautiful about a woman besides her looks, it would probably be one of these 5 things.

5 Recharging Techniques For Introverts

January 28, 2016 by Power of Positivity

To all my fellow introverts out there, I thoroughly understand your dilemma. You want to spend time with others. Yet the energy of being around so many people at once can seem overwhelming to your senses. You love people. But you can only tolerate them in small doses. You want connections with people. But you often find it hard to bond with other people. You want deep conversation, while most of the time, people at social gatherings just engage in small talk. On the other hand, you might feel so comfortable and at ease alone that you don’t even find it necessary or worthwhile to seek out friendships. Maybe you enjoy your own company so much that you don’t need to form relationships with others.

According to research, introverts comprise 16-50% of the population. This means introverts must adjust to an extroverted world, not the other way around.

So, this article applies to all the struggling introverts out there who find it hard to maintain their energy levels when in the presence of others.

Here are 5 recharging techniques for introverts:

1. Find some alone time each day.

As much time as we have to spend around others, it only makes sense that we would want to relish in the silence of solitude every once in a while. Every day, make some time for “you” time, whether that means going for a walk in nature, meditating, drawing, writing, going into your room and lighting incense, taking a hot bath, or whatever you need to do to relax. Don’t feel selfish for needing your alone time; as an introvert, self-care and self-love is crucial for remaining balanced, happy, and healthy.

2. Unleash your creativity.

Oftentimes, introverts feel stressed out and overstimulated in social situations. A good remedy for anxiety and stress is simply engaging in creative activities, whether that means writing, drawing, painting, dancing, singing, or whatever you enjoy. Studies have shown that creativity reduces stress, so why not pick up a pen or paintbrush after your next outing and forget about the outside world for a while?

Creativity can also help you become more aware of yourself and your needs/talents, which will help you cope better with unsettling situations.

3. Make your friends and family aware that you need space.

Don’t hesitate to let your loved ones know that you need to go home early from a social situation; this doesn’t mean you’re selfish; it means you care enough about yourself and others to know when you’ve had enough. Friends and family know you best, so this shouldn’t surprise them, anyway. Introverts don’t always want to stay five hours at a social gathering; maybe they’d rather stay for three and go home to relax afterward. You don’t have to compromise to have a social life; simply find a balance between both, and learn to feel comfortable in your own skin. As an introvert, don’t feel rude or disrespectful for asking for more alone time – if this makes you feel more balanced and relaxed, then you have every right to follow your instincts.

4. When socializing, go to small get-togethers.

Parties or other social events with lots of people can quickly become draining or overwhelming to the average introvert. Introverts usually do better in smaller group settings, where they can talk more intimately with people and avoid the huge crowds and noise that accompany typical social situations. If you need help making friends, check out meetup.com for local events; you can often find smaller gatherings here that will make you feel more comfortable socializing with others.

5. Don’t try to change your personality.

More than anything else, please don’t try to change to appease others or fit in. Although you shouldn’t identify with a label, our personality develops mostly in our earliest years of life. Nature and nurture play a role in developing your personality, and changing it would serve no purpose. While you can always work on certain aspects of your personality, faking extroversion will just backfire in the end, because you will feel so exhausted from trying to fake an entire persona.

If you need some tips on how to survive as an introvert in an extroverted world, please refer to our previous article here.

4 Signs Your Partner May Become Abusive

January 28, 2016 by Power of Positivity

A potentially abusive partner is a warning sign that you are in an unsafe situation. An emotionally abusive partner can quickly become a physically abusive partner. Domestic violence, physical or sexual abuse can quickly turn into homicide.

If you are even considering that you might be in an abusive relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233), click the chat now link on their website, or contact your local police department to report the behavior that concerns you. The National Domestic Violence Hotline call is free, anonymous, and confidential, and it could save your life.

Taking action quickly could save your life or the lives of those in the household with you. Protect yourself and your loved ones at all times. IF you were wrong about your partner possibly becoming abusive, at least you took steps to get help before you became a statistic.

4 Warning Signs Your Partner May Become Abusive

1. Controlling

Dictating when, where, and how you live and who you see is a sign that your partner may become abusive. A relationship should be a partnership, not a dictatorship, and you should have the freedom to make choices independently. When your partner wants to remove your ability to chose for yourself, you should be ready to protect yourself.

Perhaps your partner believes in strict gender roles where women do all the housework and child-rearing while men have a place in the workforce. Then they may also think that you need to submit to their will financially and sexually as well. When your partner believes that they have the power in the relationship, they will seek to take any power away from you to stay in control.

Distrusting you, thinking that you are cheating, or accusing you of doing things you didn’t do are warning signs that your partner may become abusive. Threats of harm are a way of controlling you with fear. You can read more about emotional abuse in our article 20 Warning Signs of an Emotionally Abusive Relationship.

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-SAFE (7233), in 2014:

“More than 20,000 victims disclosed instances of economic abuse, in which the abuser forcibly took control of or manipulated the victim’s finances in order to wield power over him or her.”

2. Belittling

Does your partner treat you like a child or as if you don’t know what’s best for you? That behavior is a warning sign that your partner may become abusive. In arguments, they use insulting, belittling language to make you feel less worthy than you are. Please read about taking back your self-worth in our article 5 Ways to End Abuse in a Relationship.

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-SAFE (7233), 96% of the abuse reported was emotional or verbal, in which the abuser degrades, threatens, insults humiliates, or isolates the victim.

3. Blaming

If your partner is making you feel like it is your fault that they are so angry, depressed, or anxious, it is a warning sign that they may become abusive. When your partner has decided that you are the reason for their emotional outbursts, you become the target of their anger.

Turning an argument around, so it is your fault, is another trait of a person who may become abusive. Suzannah Weiss writes in her article on loveisrespect.org that she learned that the name for what her abusive partner was doing is gaslighting; “gaslighting – my partner’s technique of making me doubt my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions – was an abusive manipulation tactic. For the first time, I saw why his behavior stressed me out. And it wasn’t because I was a bad partner.”

Of the reported domestic violence, 57% of victims were concerned about their relationships for more than six months before ever reaching out for help. The cycle of violence is such that the abuser takes away the power from the victim. The victim feels powerless to do anything, and the abuser can continue removing power from the victim. Stopping the cycle before you feel mentally and emotionally incapable of doing something is essential.

4. History

A history of abuse from their childhood or with previous partners is a warning sign that your partner may become abusive themselves. In childhood and early adulthood, we are still learning how to cope with our painful emotions. Unfortunately, seeing parents who are violent and have a poor ability to cope with negative emotions teaches the same coping behaviors to their children.

According to one study on the prevention of domestic violence, “witnessing domestic violence or being the victim of abuse undermines one’s ability to trust and regulate emotions and results in hostile, dependent, insecure individuals with little ability to develop healthy relationships.” The same researchers say that “male batterers are more likely to score poorly on mental health tests (for example, anxiety, depression, mania, psychosis) and criminality indicators (for example, anti-social personality and stranger violence).”

You May Have Extraterrestrial DNA. Here’s Why…

January 28, 2016 by Power of Positivity

Although it sounds impossible, it might just be that you are the genetic descendant of extraterrestrials who passed on their DNA to you. Your ancient alien ancestors may have encoded information about their dying species into your DNA, hoping that life would go on.

The idea is more than just science fiction, it is actual science theory and has been studied by many researchers hoping to learn the truth about our amazing DNA.

You May Have Extraterrestrial DNA. Here’s Why…

Holes in current scientific theories of DNA

The concept of extraterrestrial DNA arises from two pieces of information that science does not explain well. The first is how the incredibly complex DNA sequence evolved out of just separate molecules floating together. The second is how only part of our DNA contains the genes that make us living, breathing humans; the rest is called junk DNA.

Nobel Prize-winning DNA researcher Francis Crick, author of the book Life Itself, did not believe that the DNA molecule could have been created on Earth by accident. It is such a complicated system that he felt it could not have been created by the process of evolution.

A current scientific theory explains the evolution of DNA through the idea of a primeval soup. When the Earth was created, all of these atoms and molecules were moving around and eventually some of them were together in a pool of water that had the ideal conditions for DNA to be created.

Francis Crick felt this primeval soup idea of how life was created was unlikely. He compared the likelihood of DNA has evolved this way to the same likelihood of a fully functioning jumbo jet being formed from the random debris blowing around in a hurricane.

An alternate theory of DNA

Crick instead created his theory of extraterrestrial DNA, which he called the theory of Directed Panspermia. Crick theorized that an alien race facing doom sought to preserve the essence of life and sent it to Earth via a spaceship.

A spaceship is the only way possible for the extraterrestrial DNA to reach Earth because a meteor would be exposed to too much radiation on its way to Earth from another solar system. It is also unlikely that any meteor could have left a solar system other than ours and arrived here.

Extraterrestrial DNA has messages

Our DNA has extra pieces that don’t seem to have a purpose. Scientists refer to these pieces as ‘junk DNA’ because they do not have any of the necessary genes that are important for our development.

Interestingly, patents have been issued for using DNA as a recording device. Scientists have already been able to record a song on the DNA of an E-coli molecule.

Crick proposed that maybe on our so-called ‘junk DNA,’ extraterrestrials could have recorded messages for us. These aliens sent the ingredients of life off into space hoping to preserve life and possibly the history of their civilization.

The conditions on other planets are more likely to favor the survival of microorganisms like DNA than they would for more advanced creatures. So aliens would not have sent their equivalent of lab rats into space because the creatures would likely die on another planet, but sending DNA would be different.

The Human Genome Project has decoded 3.2 million bases of the human DNA. Of these, 97% have no apparent function. The ENCODE project has attempted to uncover hidden meanings in this leftover DNA. Some of the junk DNA is believed to help with regulating the expression of genes.

The ENCODE project believes that between 9 to 50% of DNA has information that regulates the expression of genes

Ewan Birney, a computational biologist, says that ‘the evolutionary rules for regulatory elements are different from those for protein-coding elements. Basically the regulatory elements turn over a lot faster. So, if you find a particular protein-coding gene in a human, you’re going to find nearly the same gene in a mouse most of the time, and that rule just doesn’t work for regulatory elements.’

In other words, the junk DNA isn’t junk, or it doesn’t seem to be. The future for disease-prevention research may lie in understanding the junk DNA rather than focusing on genetic mutations.

So, even if 9 to 50% of the unexplained part of our DNA can now be accounted for, an unexplained portion remains to be decoded. Also, the theory of the primordial soup that created DNA in the first place remains a vague, unproven idea that Francis Crick did not agree with.

So the possibility remains that you are walking, thinking, feeling expression of extraterrestrial DNA that arrived here on Earth to preserve the essence of life. The potential for being an alien ancestor certainly may change your perspective as you go about your day.

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5 Signs You Have A True Friend

The value of cultivating friendships

Do you know who your true friends are? These five signs will reveal someone’s true intentions:

1. They stay with you through the good times and the bad.

2. They accept you exactly as you are.

3. They will never hesitate to help you through your struggles.

4. They make time for you.

5. You can feel totally comfortable around each other.

Final Thoughts on Knowing Who Your True Friends Are

Here are five ways to stop taking things personally:

1. Take time to react.

2. Ask questions to clarify meaning.

3. Distance yourself from toxic people.

4. Stop relying on others to fuel your self-esteem.

5. Make sure you make plenty of time for self-care.

Final Thoughts on Learning to Stop Taking Things Personally

5 Things That Make A Woman Beautiful (Besides Her Looks)

1. A woman and her brain

2. A woman and her nurturing nature

3. A woman and her confidence

4. A woman’s pheromones

5. A woman and her skills

Here are 5 recharging techniques for introverts:

1. Find some alone time each day.

2. Unleash your creativity.

3. Make your friends and family aware that you need space.

4. When socializing, go to small get-togethers.

5. Don’t try to change your personality.

4 Warning Signs Your Partner May Become Abusive

1. Controlling

2. Belittling

3. Blaming

4. History

Holes in current scientific theories of DNA

An alternate theory of DNA

Extraterrestrial DNA has messages

The Community

Our Free Community of Positively Powerful SuperFans

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